Rigorous, Consistent Education Standards Are Necessary to Ensure All Students Have Access to a Good Education
In a piece published by Truth-Out.org, Jesse Hagopian, associate editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, claims corporate education reforms like the Common Core “have badly damaged education for all kids and have had particularly harmful effects on Black and Brown communities.” Such initiatives, Hagopian argues, “are in reality efforts to turn the schoolhouse into an ATM...
Bi-Partisan Agreement for Better, Fairer, and Fewer Tests
Support for assessments that measure how students are progressing is a bi-partisan no-brainer. Annual assessments aligned to the Common Core match the skills and content students are learning and practicing in the classroom on a daily basis. Results from the assessments are one of several indicators, in combination with report cards, teacher feedback, and classroom...
All Students Deserve a Path towards College and Career Readiness
Common Core State Standards, the “federalizing of public education,” is failing public-school students, and particularly minority children, claims Deirdre Reilly on the parent news website MomZette. “Far from achieving its goal of leveling the playing field…[the Common Core] has put children of color in the state of Kentucky (and likely in many other states as...
Opting Out Creates Long-Term Problems for Students, Teachers, and Parents
Student assessments don’t adequately measure student learning and cost classrooms valuable time, argues Bob Erland, a Massachusetts teacher, in the Cohasset Mariner. “We have to step up and make a stand against what is being inflicted against our students,” Erland argues. “These tests don’t measure success, and the cost is a generation of some of our most innovative thinkers.”...
Opting Out Puts Students at Risk, and Does Nothing to Improve Student Assessments
Although opt-out efforts have been concentrated among white, suburban populations, the “debate is becoming murkier,” the New York Times reports. “While there is little evidence thus far of a major groundswell of nonwhite, urban students opting out of testing, the battle lines are clearly shifting.” “There are places where students just feel like it’s a...
A Silent Majority of New Yorkers Are ‘Opting In’ to High-Quality Assessments
Reporting on a recent opinion piece by New York teacher Katie Lapham, a New Boston Post article suggests educators across New York adamantly oppose assessments aligned to Common Core State Standards. “Like Lapham, others in New York and elsewhere have called on students (and parents) to refuse to take the tests…‘There is no conclusive evidence...